Congratulations on your honesty for it shows your integrity and the love and respect for your husband. I think you handled it perfectly with your discussion with your husband especially giving him the option to leave. You allowed him to have control over his life once again and of course he picked you which is no surprise.

Generally it ususally is suggested to always be honest with your husband about everything. Some husbands request full information about the intimacy of the affair and others do not. If your husband needs that information to heal that you should give him all of the information that he requests. The other question of telling the OM's wife is another matter. I do not see how this will heal your marriage at this point. The desire to tell the OM's wife is for revenge. I would try to dissuade him at this point unless it becomes a core point in the healing of your marriage. Remember honesty about all of the facts is a must.

I think the way you handled the situation is a perfect example of what to do to help repair a marriage. As a famous man once said: "Only the truth can set you free." I wish you luck.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> He wanted to contact the OM's W. I strongly discouraged that. Am I wrong? Can anyone help? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Interestingly enough, I started a thread on this very topic. The replies were interesting. I also called Harley when he was on his wife's radio show. He said I should tell. The tread is located here: Should I tell OM's Spouse?

<small>[ September 29, 2002, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>

Krissee,

Good job! Honesty and respect go a very, very long way in healing a marriage. I only speak as a BS. My wife was honest with me and told me answers when I asked. Even the sorrid details was part of the healing process. Be prepared for your husband to compare himself to your lover. It's hard not to! Be ready how to counter that. Be ready for a rash of emotions. They consist of betrayal, anger, hurt, and depression just to name a few. Be ready for him. This will only help him come around.

I believe that your husband has that feeling of wanting to tell the OM wife not only out of revenge(self satisfaction) but for the same as he was expecting - honesty. I never got that chance so I really can't speak from experience. I can say though that if you withheld info from your husband such as names, numbers, details that it is much harder for him to trust you and beginning to trust you at this time is huge.

Keep us updated and I am sure that we will all help as much as we can. Read SAA and this website. Even offer your husband to read this info. The state of the marriage was hard to accept for me and may be for your husband. Easier said though. Your husband will easily say why didn't you just talk to me if it was this bad? Lots of questions for him. Don't blame though. He will have lots of self doubt. Be there for him as you have been so far and "show" him your love and willingness to fix your marriage. I am quite sure that it will work out. Good luck!

Krisee

Now that you told your H about your fling, the chances of you engaging in another fling or A, have been greatly reduced. If he realizes that he has been neglectful or ignorant of filling your most important EN's and wants to remain married to you, then he will try his best to meet them so that you may never be tempted again if you are ever in a similar circumstances.

Many WS's after their first A try to fix the M by themselves without the active participation of the ignorant BS, and when they see that nothing has changed in the M, their sense of frustration is so great that they end up giving up on the M and settle for subsequent A's to continue to meet those EN's. By the time the BS discovers the truth, years may have passed since the start of the WS's infidelity and even if the BS wants to work on rebuilding the M, the WS is very apathetic about trying again.

So now you see another important reason why honesty is the way to go.

Krissee,
Just checking in to see how you're doing. I hope that each day you're thinking less and less of the OM and that situation.

I hope things are going well for you and your H, and that your marriage can grow each day.

Take care,
Hopeful

I thank all of you for your help with this. I'm doing o.k. and not thinking about OM at all. He's not important - my H is. I felt better at first because I told the truth, but now I feel just sick inside over the hurt I have caused. I honestly had started feeling better earlier once I realized my EN's - once my H and I completed the questionnaire. That was the start of my healing and like getting hit in the head with a frying pan, I realized why the A occurred. My H's EN's were all being met so that explains some things - why he seemed happy. Now we must move on. I have never felt so close to my H in all my life. He's been wanting me close then distancing me then wanting me close again. I still offered the option to him that he can have me leave, but he still replies that he wants me to stay. Now I'm getting a few insults thrown at me over the A - understandable because of his pain. I tried to buy Dr. H's books but book store is sold out so I'll have to buy online I guess. Any ideas or encouragement at this point is greatly appreciated.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I have never felt so close to my H in all my life. He's been wanting me close then distancing me then wanting me close again. I still offered the option to him that he can have me leave, but he still replies that he wants me to stay. Now I'm getting a few insults thrown at me over the A - understandable because of his pain. I tried to buy Dr. H's books but book store is sold out so I'll have to buy online I guess. Any ideas or encouragement at this point is greatly appreciated.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Welcome to the emotional rollercoaster your husband will be riding for some months, at least.
There is no magic bullet to cure this. It mostly depends on him. There are two things you can do to help him. Point him to resources like SAA, "Torn Asunder", "Love Busters", HN/HN, "The Five Love Languages", "Passionate MArriage", Retrouvaille (they have a web site) Marriage Encounter Weekends, Harley's radio show, (if it is available in your area), marriage counseling, etc. The other is to be open and honest with him about how you feel about him and how he treats you. This means BOTH to tell him how close you feel to him, how much you appreciate his willingness to forgive you, how good any efforts he makes to fill your ENs make you feel, AND how the insults make you feel, how you feel when his efforts at filling your ENs miss the mark, how scared you are about whether you can fix the marriage, etc.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that both sides of your reactions need to be expressed, both the positive and negative. The positive is ESSENTIAL for him to recover, because he needs to know his efforts are being effective. It's one of the best things you can do to encourage him, and believe me, he needs encouragement. The second part is essential for you to recover. One of the biggest mistakes repentent WS's make is to minimize their own hurt because "the BS is suffering much more than I, so their angry (unacceptable, anti-marriage, anti-intimacy, anti-recovery) reactions are understandable, and I shold tolerate them". This is poison to a recovery. If your situation is similar to my wife's, it was precisely your inability to express your dis-satisfaction w/ the status quo that was one of the main reasons your marriage got to the point where you were so vulnerable to another man's attention.

Ideally, recovery is 100% about how to have a great marriage. The affair has to be explored only in relation to those things that help you to get to the great marriage. That may include some vey painful (for both of you) exploration of the affair in order to answer questions like:
What did H do to push you away from intimacy w/ him?
What was it in you that caused you to choose an A as a way of dealing with your problems, instead of some other method?
What wasn't H doing to draw you into intimacy w/ him?
How is your H different than your image of him?
How are you different than his image of you?
Hw did your unspoken expectations of each other contribute to the affair, and more importantly, which one's need to simply be spoken, and which ones need to be changed?

Then there is the problem of how to deal with these emotinally explosive issues without letting the anger, pain, embarrassment, and blaming overwhelm you and destroy your communication. This probably the hardest thing you will ever do. If you succeed, you will have a relationship w/ each other that is 1 in 10,000, if that.

Right now, he is stuck in his own emotional reactions to the A, which are likely to include a lot of anger. He cannot really control that. He CAN control what he does with it, and by showing him the negative consequences of attacking you with it, by being open and hoest about how it affects you, he should be able to see that his actions are not getting you closer to the "Great Marriage" goal, which may encourage him to make use of some of the resources listed above.

I also had lots of questions, including a level of detail many here are uncomfortable with. Although the questions and answers did not always serve the purpose of getting to the "Great Marriage" goal, the honesty and openness of my wife in answering those questions was of greater benefit to me than the negative consequences of finding out details that were painful. There were things she resisted answering, and that lack of openness and honesty was more painful than the answers were. Yes, she was frequently right that the answers did not help me. A better response than unspoken resistance would have been: "I am willing to answer honestly any questions you have. I do not believe answering this question will serve the goal of making our marriage better. But, if you feel you need an answer to move forward, I will give you the answer. I would also like to know why you feel a need for an answer to this question, so I can understand you better, and we can discuss that either before or after I give you the answer." This affirms your committment to H&O, it affirms your interest in him, it indicates a trust in his judgement, it encourages him to be be open and honest, encouraging good communication, and sounds a lot like "I will do whatever it takes to make this work, even if it is unpleasant for me at times, but I will not go through unpleasantness for no reason".

<small>[ September 30, 2002, 09:50 AM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>

Hi Krissee,

Your'e doing great! It's not going to be easy though. He will be going through quite a bit of pain and questioning. Just be there for him and be honest with him.

Just to give you a brief bit of info about myself. I am the BS. My wife also had a "fling" that was over immediately. We are just about to come up on 2 years in Oct. It's not been fun, but is now becoming very rewarding. I believe I hampered the healing process and dip back into it every now and then. It's tough not to compare and wonder if things were that bad why we couldn't just talk and maybe go to counseling. Of course - hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20.

Well, I see exactly what your are going through. His needs, as mine, were met, everything seemed good, he seemed happy. Your needs however, were not. I guess I didn't know what or how to meet some of the ones I finally found out about. Be careful here though, don't blame. My wife did and it seemed to derail the healing process. Yes, it was mutual on the state of the marriage but not on the affair. Understand that this unfortunately follows you for the rest of your life. It's how you deal and how your husband deals with it. It can work out though. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Some questions to help not just me but others also:
Have you discussed counseling? Maybe counseling with the Harley's? How is your husband on the practices of Marriage Builders? Does he agree or disagree? Are there kids involved? How many years married? Does your husband know the OM? Is there any possiblity of STD's or pregnancy?

Well, for now just trying to help and get a better handle. It does get better! My wife and I are finally getting back on track and haven't felt closer in quite some time. It took some work, some patience on both of our parts. Come here for advice and to vent. Keep your chin up! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Your response was helpful. We had a very long talk last night (4 hours) and it was reasonable. We are now very intimate with each other and having lots of great sex. Hope this is o.k. to say this. My H's needs for this are great right now probably because he feels so vulnerable. This is absolutely wonderful. I'm wondering why things feel so good today. I feel like I can breath again and that there is lots of hope. Perhaps I'm feeling unworthy of this very kind and special treatment. Also feeling kinda of scared because this seems too good to be true. I send no contact letter yesterday with H's approval and copied H in. This was done willingly on my part. Question - is this normal to feel so good an close to H? Will this last? My H is obviously a wonderful and very forgiving S. Perhaps this is the guilt and self-loathing in me that feels I don't deserve my H? H wasn't meeting my EN's before but has been for a number of weeks - is that why I feel really extremely in love with H right now?

answer to your ?'s. No worry of STD, no worry of pregnancy. Yes, we have kids. They are fine - they don't know anything about this. My H does not know OM (he lives in another state), so no contact is very easy. My H believes in MB concepts so that's good. In fact, I started sharing some info from this site prior to me admitting to A. I guess all of this is good, right? Maybe we have less to worry about than I thought.

Hey Krissee,

Great job!

Yes, you can say that. Being intimate right now is so important. It reconnects you on that level. As far as feeling good - GOOD! Breathe, relax and realize that you have a genuine chance to make something better - your marriage. You're on the right track.

I was once told that the feeling of being vulnerable was what was needed for love to re-enter. That sounds exactly what you have had. It's keeping yourself open and trusting that your spouse will always be there for you and will never hurt you.

I believe that your no contact letter is huge. Being honest and up front especially now, with your husbands blessing is big - especially for trust. Keep everything as positive as you can. Focus on that. Focus on your husband, you, the children, your family, and your marriage.

Your intimacy level seems to be real close right now. Be ready though for that roller coaster. I hope it won't happen! It sounds like you have a very forgiving husband that loves his wife very much and that he will do what it takes for you! You acting the way you are right now also has alot to do with this. A large wall was knocked down but must now be put back up, brick by brick! As far as your feelings are concerned about the needs being met - of course you are right. That is what that raw, open, vulnerable feeling is. He meets your needs and you meet his. You are there for him no matter what and vice versa. This does actually work! The hard part is that you have to keep it up - keep working at it. It's not an on and off button. It's a choice!

Take a look at this post. There are numerous postings on the recovery and success stories throughout MB. These are great as far as running into problems that you will eventually have. I hope they help. One of my most favorite success stories is about "SKM". Her story sounds alot like you and when she "began" her chapter down this road to recovery.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum29/HTML/000554.html

Well, long enough for now. You sound like you are doing very well. Congratulations! Keep us updated. Remember to always come here to ask questions, vent, whatever!

Krissee,
I know that the emotion rollcoaster will depend on you too. You sound like you have a very level head and you are willing to work on everything. I hope things get nothing but better for you. Hang in there and don't forget what a great thing you did by being honest w/ him along w/ yourself. Things all work out and just keep everything in context. I was glad to check in & see you are better. Prayers do work..

thanks ees. Like I said before all of you played a part in helping me come to terms with my need to tell about the A. The roller coaster ride has definitely started. Last night we almost regressed. It's hard to explain but with the regular routine we almost slipped back into our old ways. It's so easy to get distracted with all the other demands being placed on us daily. Instead of ignoring it, we took time for ourselves, went for coffee and discussed. What a great thing to do. By the time we got back home we were back on track. I would encourage anyone to take time out every single day to reconnect.

I am so glad for you. See good things will happen even in the darkest moment. If there is anything I can do for you or if you regress (hopefully not)
keep looking at the long term picture. It is all to easy to focus on the bad in a relationship when all things are happening. I know that you will be stronger & so will your marriage after all this is over. Be understanding of what your husband is going through. Do those little things for him b/c we are only looking for small victories.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It's so easy to get distracted with all the other demands being placed on us daily. Instead of ignoring it, we took time for ourselves, went for coffee and discussed. What a great thing to do. By the time we got back home we were back on track. I would encourage anyone to take time out every single day to reconnect.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If you make this reconnecting a habit, then the old ways will become a thing of the past.

Somebody said it and it's worth repeating, that the best gift parents can give to their children is a great marriage.

To paraphrase a well known saying, the price of a great marriage is eternal vigilance.

God bless you and your loved ones.